Banking & reconciliation — Mutual Africa Pay Help

Banking

Banking & reconciliation

How to connect your bank account, automate reconciliation, import statements manually, and keep your financial records aligned with your actual bank balances in Mutual Africa Pay.

Connecting your bank account via open banking

Mutual Africa Pay connects directly to your business bank account via an open banking API — allowing transactions to flow into the platform automatically without manual imports or CSV exports. Once connected, your bank transactions are available in Mutual Africa Pay in real time or on a regular refresh cycle, depending on your bank's feed frequency.

How to connect a bank account

Go to Banking — Select Banking from the main navigation. Click Connect Bank Account.

Select your bank — Choose your bank from the list of supported South African and African financial institutions. If your bank is not listed, use the manual import option instead.

Authorise the connection — Mutual Africa Pay redirects you to your bank's secure authorisation page. Log in with your banking credentials directly on your bank's site. Mutual Africa Pay never handles or stores your banking login details — the authorisation is completed entirely on your bank's infrastructure.

Select the account to connect — After authorisation, you are returned to Mutual Africa Pay and prompted to select which account or accounts to connect. Select your business current account and any other accounts you want to include.

Initial transaction import — Mutual Africa Pay imports your recent transaction history — typically the last ninety days — immediately. The reconciliation process begins automatically as transactions load.

Open banking connections use read-only access. Mutual Africa Pay can see your transaction history but cannot initiate transactions, transfer funds, or modify anything in your bank account. The connection is secure and authorised through your bank's own authentication system.

Keeping the connection active

Open banking authorisations typically expire after ninety days and require re-authorisation. Mutual Africa Pay notifies you in advance when a re-authorisation is needed so that the feed is not interrupted. Re-authorisation takes less than a minute and follows the same process as the initial connection.

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How automatic bank reconciliation works

Mutual Africa Pay's automatic bank reconciliation matches each transaction in your bank feed to the corresponding record in your accounts — an invoice payment to the invoice, an expense payment to the expense entry, a supplier payment to the supplier bill. When a match is found, the transaction is reconciled automatically. When no match can be found, the transaction is flagged for manual review.

The matching process

For each bank transaction, Mutual Africa Pay looks for a matching record based on the amount, the date, and the transaction reference. Exact matches are confirmed automatically. Near-matches — where the amount and date align but the reference is different, or where a single bank transaction corresponds to multiple records — are presented as suggested matches for your review and confirmation.

Viewing your reconciliation status

Go to Banking and select Bank Reconciliation. The reconciliation screen shows three columns — reconciled transactions, suggested matches awaiting confirmation, and unmatched bank transactions that need manual attention. Your reconciled closing balance is shown at the top of the screen and should match your actual bank balance.

Confirming suggested matches

For transactions where Mutual Africa Pay has found a likely match but wants confirmation, review the suggested match and click Confirm if it is correct. If the suggestion is wrong, click No Match and handle the transaction manually.

What triggers an unmatched transaction

Transactions that do not match any existing record appear as unmatched. Common causes include a bank charge not yet recorded as an expense, a payment received outside the invoicing system, a new supplier payment not linked to a purchase order, or a bank fee. Each unmatched transaction needs to be either matched to an existing record, or used to create a new record — for example, a new expense entry for a bank charge.

Running bank reconciliation at least weekly is better practice than leaving it for month-end. Frequent reconciliation means fewer unmatched items to resolve at once and keeps your financial reports accurate throughout the month.

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Manually importing bank statements

If your bank is not connected via open banking, or if you need to import statements for a period before the open banking connection was established, Mutual Africa Pay allows you to import bank statements manually by uploading a CSV file.

How to prepare your CSV file

Export a statement from your internet banking in CSV format. The file should contain at minimum a transaction date column, a description or reference column, and a debit or credit amount column. Some banks export a single amount column with negative values for debits — Mutual Africa Pay handles both formats.

How to import the CSV file

Go to Banking, then Import Statement — Click Import Bank Statement.

Select your bank account — Choose the Mutual Africa Pay account this statement belongs to.

Upload the CSV file — Click Upload File and select your exported CSV.

Map the columns — Mutual Africa Pay will display the columns it has detected in your file. Match each column to the correct field — Date, Description, Debit, Credit. If your file has a single Amount column with negatives for debits, select Single Amount Column.

Preview the import — Mutual Africa Pay shows a preview of the transactions it will import. Verify that the dates and amounts look correct.

Confirm the import — Click Import. Transactions are loaded and the reconciliation process begins automatically.

Duplicate detection is built in. If you import a statement that overlaps with transactions already in the system — for example, if you import a full month but the first week was already imported via open banking — Mutual Africa Pay identifies and skips the duplicates.

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Resolving unmatched transactions

Unmatched transactions are bank transactions that Mutual Africa Pay could not automatically reconcile to an existing record. Every unmatched transaction needs to be resolved before your reconciliation is complete. This article explains how to handle the most common types.

Bank charges and fees

Bank charges, service fees, and interest charges are common sources of unmatched transactions because they have no corresponding record in your accounts. To resolve these, select the unmatched transaction and click Create Expense. Mutual Africa Pay creates an expense entry for the amount and links it to the bank transaction — resolving the match in one step. Assign the expense to the Bank Charges category.

Payments received outside the invoicing system

If a client paid you by direct bank transfer rather than through a Mutual Africa Pay payment link, the payment arrives in your bank but has no corresponding invoice payment record. Select the unmatched transaction and click Match to Invoice. Search for the relevant invoice by client name or invoice number and select it. The payment is linked to the invoice and the invoice is marked as paid.

Supplier payments not linked to a bill

If you paid a supplier directly by bank transfer and the payment was not initiated through Mutual Africa Pay, find the unmatched debit transaction and click Match to Bill. Search for the supplier bill and select it. Alternatively, if there is no bill in the system, click Create Bill from Transaction — Mutual Africa Pay creates a supplier bill for the amount and links it to the bank transaction.

Transactions you cannot identify

If you encounter a bank transaction you cannot identify, contact your bank to clarify what the transaction relates to before recording it. Do not guess the category — an incorrectly categorised transaction will produce an inaccurate profit and loss report and may cause errors in your VAT calculation.

Do not leave unmatched transactions unresolved indefinitely. Unreconciled items accumulate and make month-end and year-end processes significantly more time-consuming. Set a routine of resolving unmatched items at least once a week.

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Reconciling a foreign currency account

If your business holds a foreign currency bank account — for example, a USD account for receiving international payments — Mutual Africa Pay can reconcile it in its native currency while converting the equivalent ZAR value for your reporting currency financial statements.

Connecting a foreign currency account

The process for connecting a foreign currency account is identical to connecting a ZAR account — go to Banking, click Connect Bank Account, select your bank, and complete the authorisation. When selecting which account to connect, choose the foreign currency account. Mutual Africa Pay will ask you to confirm the currency of that account during setup.

How transactions are recorded

Transactions in a foreign currency account are recorded in both the native currency and in your reporting currency. The reporting currency equivalent is calculated using the exchange rate on the transaction date. This means your balance sheet and profit and loss report always show accurate ZAR equivalents even for foreign currency holdings.

Exchange rate adjustments

The ZAR value of a foreign currency balance changes daily as exchange rates move. Mutual Africa Pay applies a period-end revaluation to your foreign currency balances at the end of each reporting period — adjusting the ZAR equivalent to reflect the current rate. This adjustment appears in your profit and loss report as a foreign exchange gain or loss.

If you regularly receive payments in a foreign currency, set that currency as the default on the relevant client profiles. Mutual Africa Pay will invoice in the correct currency, receive payment through the foreign currency account, and handle all conversion and reconciliation automatically.

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Supported South African banks for open banking

Mutual Africa Pay supports direct open banking connections to all major South African banking institutions. For banks not yet on the open banking connection list, manual statement import is available as an alternative.

Supported via open banking connection

The following South African banks are currently supported for live bank feed connections: ABSA, Standard Bank, First National Bank, Nedbank, and Capitec Bank. Connections to these banks use secure OAuth-based authorisation — no banking credentials are ever stored in Mutual Africa Pay.

Supported via manual statement import

For all other South African banks and African financial institutions not currently on the live feed list, Mutual Africa Pay supports manual CSV statement imports. African banks with growing open banking support include selected Kenyan, Nigerian, and Ghanaian institutions — check the Banking connection screen for the current list as this is updated as new connections are added.

Mobile money accounts

Mutual Africa Pay does not currently support direct open banking connections to mobile money accounts such as M-Pesa, MTN Mobile Money, or Airtel Money. Transaction records from mobile money accounts can be imported manually. Export your mobile money transaction history from the provider's app and import it as a CSV using the manual import process.

Requesting a new bank connection

If your bank is not currently supported and you would like Mutual Africa Pay to add support for it, submit a request through the support ticket system. Include your bank name and country. Mutual Africa Pay prioritises new connection requests based on demand across the user base.

The supported bank list is updated as new connections are established. Check the Banking section of your account for the current list, as it may have expanded since this article was last updated.

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